KING CASE AFTERMATH: A CITY IN CRISIS : Williams Maintains Distance From L.A. Strife : Police: Chief-designate says he has made a ‘conscious decision’ not to intervene in city leaders’ actions. Officers in King case won’t be welcomed back on force, he says.

PHILADELPHIA —  Willie L. Williams, the police chief-designate of the Los Angeles Police Department, said Friday he would not look favorably on efforts by police officers found not guilty in the Rodney King case to return to their jobs, and called for a “complete review” of the department’s use-of-force guidelines and its disciplinary process.

Williams, who canceled a long-planned trip to Los Angeles Friday to monitor developments from Philadelphia, distanced himself from the crisis-management techniques of Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, saying he has made a “conscious and professional decision” not to intervene in the actions of city leaders trying to quell the rioting in the nation’s second-largest city.

Three days after the violence erupted in Los Angeles, Williams said he has not discussed the events there, or the Police Department’s response to them, with any senior officials of the department he is to head.

“I have purposely not contacted the leadership” of the LAPD, Williams said. “They’re the people responsible for this incident and they have to manage it,” he added. “Until Willie Williams walks in there and raises his right hand (to take the oath of office), it’s not appropriate to offer them my two-cents’ worth.”

At the same time, however, Williams said that once he takes up his post in mid-June, he will review decisions taken during the crisis and use them as the basis for reforms.

Williams’ comments, made in an interview with The Times and throughout a long day of press interviews, appeared to indicate that the 49-year-old successor to Gates will move aggressively to take control of the embattled Los Angeles Police Department and move it into a new era of reform. The depth of the city’s crisis has made it imperative he move quickly, Williams said.

“Whatever little bit of break-in time, the honeymoon that you usually get when you change jobs, I lost that last Wednesday when that jury verdict came in,” Williams said. “From the day I go into L.A., I’m prepared to be” the person whom Angelenos will look to for leadership, he added.

Within the next six months, Williams said that he probably will be asked to rule on the applications for a return to work of at least one of the four police officers found not guilty in the King case, and he made clear he would take a dim view of the request. Williams said he would “make sure that every appeal process and so forth had been utilized before taking them back.”

Noting that none of the officers “would even be able to work street duty in Los Angeles because of public fear and hostility,” Williams said that “it’s going to be very difficult as a manager and executive coming in to work with people like that.”

The city’s first African-American police chief, asked by a television interviewer whether Gates is “a bad guy,” also offered an unusually candid assessment of the man he is to succeed.

“In some way, time has passed him by,” Williams told the interviewer. “He’s very smart. He’s a good administrator. But he’s got to have his way. He’s just got to have his way.”

Williams is to assume his job as police chief on June 29, although he is expected to move to the city in the first or second week of the month. In the meantime, he said he could not abandon his responsibilities as commissioner of police in Philadelphia to travel to Los Angeles. Though several apparently isolated incidents of violence have occurred here, Philadelphia has remained relatively quiet as strife has gripped cities across the nation.

Williams added that the magnitude of his job in Los Angeles, as well as the urgency of his efforts, have greatly increased in recent days and weeks. The morale of the department, he said, “is at rock bottom and below,” Williams said Friday. At the same time, he added, “it’s clear the people do not have faith” in the disciplinary process under which police officers operate.

Both the department’s internal policies and its relationships to the community need fixing, he said. “You cannot separate your responsibilities to your officers and your citizens--all those people are your concerns and your charge,” Williams said.

“What you have to do is establish clear policies of actions, practices and what is acceptable behavior on the part of police officers. You also have to set a clear tone of what will happen if you cross that line.”

At the same time, Williams made clear that he intends to open internal procedures to public scrutiny and community review.

“The LAPD’s use-of-force guidelines need complete review,” Williams told The Times. “It’s going to be my job as incoming chief to examine each and every policy and procedure within the department.”

Williams also said administrative guidelines permit the firing of police officers, even in the absence of a guilty verdict on a criminal charge. But he said he would await the results of a still-uncompleted administrative board review of the officers’ conduct before he would make any decision about their future on the force.

Williams has faced opposition within the Philadelphia Police Department for firing several officers for alleged wrongdoing, even in cases where they were cleared by juries. On Friday, he strongly indicated that his reputation for tough disciple probably would follow him to Los Angeles, where one of his first decisions will be the future of the four defendants in the King beating case.

Three were found not guilty of all charges against them. A fourth officer was found not guilty of all but one charge. A mistrial was declared on that count because the jury could not agree on a verdict.

Asked whether it was the case that “those guys are not going to work for you,” Williams told a small group of reporters, “I’d end up in court over that.” He later said he was “not inclined to do anything until I am fully informed.”

Throughout the day, Williams was openly critical of the process by which the four defendants in the Rodney King beating trial were acquitted. But he was especially critical of the decision to move the trial to Simi Valley, whose population, he said, did not reflect the urban outlook or experiences of city-dwellers.

He declared that “race was clearly a factor” in the judgments of the jurors who returned the verdicts.

“I can understand the anger and the frustration in the hearts of the citizens of this country, not just the minority citizens but of all ethnicities,” Williams said. But he added that the violence in Los Angeles must stop and renewed his call for the arrest and prosecution of those who have looted and burned businesses and harmed citizens.